MUSLIMS: DOCTRINESfreely.6o This assertion of divine qadar by al-I:Iasan was as much a
denial of the impersonal mechanistic operation of fate as was the
Qur'anic opposition to dahr, and al-I:Iasan based his arguments on
the Qur'an. But his position that material existence is determined by
divine destiny while one's spiritual destiny is in one's own hands is so
close to the Mazdaean position vis-a.-vis the Zurvanites that one may
legitimately suspect some assistance in its formulation from that di-
rection.
Islamic advocates of human ability to choose and act (called Qa-
dariyya) emerged at Basra among the followers of al-I:Iasan al-Ba~ri
in the last decade of the seventh century. They represent a continuation
among Muslims of the arguments between Zurvanites and Mazdaeans
and between Marcionites and Nestorians. The concepts contained in
those controversies were most likely to have been made available by
Muslim converts from Magianism and Christianity. In a letter written
in 680, the Nestorian catholicos George I refers to the "free choice
and nobility of the will of all reasoning and intellectual beings. "61 The
eighth-century Nestorian Mar Sergius of Azerbayjan says that the
splendor of reason is that it may examine and choose of its own will
and not by force and that "freedom itself is the child of power."62
According to some, a member of the Asawira at Basra called Abii
Yiinus al-Uswari was the first Muslim to discuss destiny and disas-
sociation (Ar. i'tizal). According to others, it was an Iraqi Christian
convert to Islam called Siisan who afterwards became a Christian
again. Siisan is said to have influenced Ma'bad al-Juhani, the first real
Qadari at Basra, who was a close associate of al-I:Iasan al-Ba~ri and
the teacher of Ghaylan of Damascus. Ma'bad joined the revolt of Ibn
al-Ash'ath and was executed afterwards.^63
By the early eighth century, several groups of Qadaris and some
Khawarij refused to make God responsible for evil. The Shabibiyya
denied that God's foreknowledge had a determining effect, and ex-
plained human responsibility by the concept of delegation (Ar. tafwld)
6°Ibn Sa'd, Tabaqiit, VII(I), 127; Obermann, "Political Theology," pp. 144, 148-
51, 156-57; Schwarz, "Letter," pp. 16, 19-20,25,28-29; van Ess, "Umar II and his
Epistle against the Qadariya," Abr Nahrain 12 (1971-72), 21, 24.
61 Chabot, Synodicon, pp. 231, 495.
62 Budge, Rabban H6rmlzd, II, 319. Mar Sergius also had affinities to Magianisrn
(ibid.).
63Ibn an-Nadim, Fihrist, I, 381; Obermann, "Political Theology," p. 153; Mont-
gomery Watt, Formative Period, pp. 85,95,99; idem, Free Will, pp. 53, 59; Wensinck,
Muslim Creed, p. 53.